Online Fundraising Idea – Raffle Case Study
Increasingly in today’s society people are looking for easy options for fundraising with demand creating the advent of online fundraising. One relatively new online fundraising idea is an online raffle.
Like many schools St Scholastica’s College P&F Association decided to conduct a Mother’s Day raffle and the coordinator, Linda was handed the task.
Let’s see how Linda used the 4Ps – Planning, Prize, Price and Promotion to create a successful online fundraising raffle.
Planning the raffle in advance
The Mother’s Day raffle was set to be drawn at a Mother’s Day breakfast and Linda wanted to maximise pre-event ticket sales by launching the raffle well in advance. Linda registered her raffle to commence 23rd March providing 6 weeks of sales. However this was directly before the Easter holidays making promotion difficult and ticket sales were understandably slow to begin. We recommend you consider school & public holidays when planning your raffle timeframe.
RaffleLink will also discuss your permit requirements and regulations with you during an initial phone consultation and provide you with a Raffle Plan to get all your ducks in a row before your raffle launches.
Prizes to suit their target audience
The prize pool was a total of $2250 in value across three prizes. As a Mother’s Day raffle the prizes were chosen to appeal to a female audience which was perfect – make up, skin care products, wine & flowers. Always consider your ticket buying audience when choosing your prizes. Stuck for ideas? Visit our Mega List of Raffle Prizes for inspiration.
Prizes can be a significant expense when conducting a raffle. St Scholastica were fortunate to receive donated prizes. Check out our blog on Asking for Raffle Prize Donations and start early or if your time is too valuable get in touch to learn more about our Price Sourcing Service.
Ticket price to suit their prize pool value
Although the single ticket price was quiet low at $2.50, the organiser was clever to include a selection of ticket packages outlined below to extract a higher sale from the ticket buyer.
Single ticket $2.50
1st Combo Tickets 10 tickets for $25.00
2nd Combo Tickets 15 tickets for $35.00
3rd Combo Tickets 20 tickets for $45.00
Looking at the statistics from the sales report it is clear that the discounted package options drove ticket buyers to make a higher purchase. 69 people made a $25 purchase and 21 people settled on a $45 package. The average ticket purchase price online was $2.39, just marginally below the full ticket price.
| Package | Single ticket | 10 tickets | 15 tickets | 20 tickets | ||||
| Price | $2.50 | $10 | $12.50 | $15 | $25 | $35 | $45 | $90 |
| # of Sales | 3 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 69 | 6 | 21 | 1 |
As St Scholastica were using RaffleLink for the first time and unsure of the results, they decided to also keep some paper tickets for sale. At raffle close 250 paper tickets were sold and 1311 tickets were sold online.
Linda commented that not many paper ticket buyers bought 10 & 20 paper tickets at one time illustrating the ease of online purchasing leading to an increase in sales.
Promote your raffle energetically
Once your online raffle is live on the net, promotion is the final key to your success. To ‘set and forget’ your online raffle is like printing paper tickets and leaving them to sit on the kitchen bench!
Again looking at the sales report there are 3 definite peaks in ticket sales throughout the duration of the raffle which Linda attributes to 3 direct emails to parents. If your organisation has a database then an EDM (electronic direct marketing) is the simplest, most effective way to reach your audience and should be your first marketing tool.
We provide all our clients with access to a suite of marketing tools & templates to make sure you hit the ground running with your raffle promotion.
When it was all done & dusted, Linda has this to say about her online raffle experience “We are very happy with the result and had great feedback from parents.” Parents commented about the “ease of purchasing tickets and the visibility of prizes (pictures)”.
“We will definitely be back again and make better use of the great marketing materials you have provided.”
Get in touch today to learn how an online fundraising raffle can work for you.
